Cooley Should Be Stopped Dead In His Tracks: Marked Increase In Discipline, Demotions And Terminations - Don't Challenge This Thug

Cooley at center of lawsuits, infighting

By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer

Updated: 02/20/2010 10:13:29 PM PST

prosecutor puts it, the infighting, lawsuits and upheaval inside the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has turned it into a veritable "snake's nest."

A series of legal battles between the prosecutors union and District Attorney Steve Cooley over allegations of anti-labor retaliation has provided a rare and sordid glimpse into the office charged with enforcing the law in the nation's most populous county.

"There is a lot of apparent acrimony between the administration and the union," said Tom Higgins, the head deputy district attorney who oversees criminal filings for most of Los Angeles and once ran against Cooley. "I think it's unfortunate we are fighting amongst ourselves."

The battle is playing out in a federal lawsuit filed last fall by the prosecutors union and in more than a dozen unfair labor practice complaints before the county Employee Relations Commission.

The fight centers on a series of allegations that Cooley has worked to quash union activities by retaliating against hundreds of prosecutors involved with the Association of Deputy District Attorneys.

For example, he is accused of transferring pro-union attorneys to postings farther from their homes, cutting benefits, demoting them and downgrading their job evaluations. He is also accused of avoiding subpoenas from the county labor board, which is seeking to have him explain his actions.

Cooley's representatives dismiss the allegations

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as the work of a small group of disgruntled employees who politically oppose Cooley, including one who ran against him in 2008.

But he has to fight the charges even as he seeks to raise his political profile in coming months by exploring a run for state attorney general.

For someone who aspires to the state's highest law enforcement office, Cooley's "contempt for the rule of law and for the welfare of his deputies is astonishing," said attorney Matthew G. Monforton, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney who represents the union.

"He has retaliated against deputy prosecutors who have simply expressed an interest in joining the union," said Monforton, who now practices law in his native Montana while continuing to represent the union. "Cooley has cut health benefits to prosecutors who have unionized as well as their families. ... Cooley simply does not want to have anyone to be able to hold him accountable for the illegal activities and the illegal manner in which he has run the office."

District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Shiara Davila- Morales said Cooley was unavailable to comment on the Association of Deputy District Attorneys lawsuit or the cases before the Employee Relations Commission.

"As for the (ERCOM) matters, these have been filed by a small group of four or five disgruntled and, in some cases, troubled employees," Davila-Morales said. "This has not caused upheaval or infighting within the office."

Attorneys opposed Cooley

Los Angeles attorney L. Trevor Grimm, who is representing the county in the ADDA lawsuit and ERCOM cases, did not return calls for comment.

Kevin Spillane, a consultant for Cooley's potential attorney general campaign, noted that ADDA president Steve Ipsen ran against Cooley in the 2008 election and lost.

"(The ADDA) opposed Cooley in 2004 and 2008 and he was overwhelmingly re-elected," Spillane said. "And in this campaign, the small group of disgruntled employees have endorsed the two other Republican candidates for attorney general, (state Sen.) Tom Harman and (former Chapman University Law School dean) John Eastman and Democratic candidate (San Francisco District Attorney) Kamala Harris."

But Ipsen disputed Spillane's contention about a "small group of disgruntled employees," noting the ADDA board that voted to file the federal lawsuit and the ERCOM complaints has 21 members.

Ipsen said he supported Cooley in 2004 but ran against him in 2008 because Cooley didn't keep campaign promises, made "punitive transfers" of prosecutors and refused to address union grievances.

Ipsen estimated about 30 percent of the more than 1,000 prosecutors in the D.A.'s Office have since suffered punitive transfers - banished to entry-level jobs in locations far from their homes.

"Federal and state laws give deputy district attorneys the right to have an association and not to be threatened if we have a union, and that is what this administration is doing - causing fear and threatening people's careers if they join or support the union," Ipsen said.

The hostility intensified in October when the ADDA filed the lawsuit alleging Cooley had retaliated against prosecutors who joined the union with "freeway therapy," transferring senior prosecutors to juvenile courts that often involve long commutes.

One is Robert Dver, assistant head deputy of the Training Division, who told Cooley he wanted to join the ADDA's contract negotiating team to help "achieve reasonable compromises" between the ADDA and the Cooley administration, Monforton wrote.

But Cooley reacted to Dver's idea with "disgust," told him those who joined the union were "contaminated" and instructed him to instead "undermine" the ADDA, Monforton wrote. When Dver refused, Cooley transferred him out of the Training Division and demoted him, Monforton wrote.

On Monday, the federal judge will hear a motion Monforton filed seeking a preliminary injunction prohibiting Cooley from retaliating against prosecutors due to their membership in the ADDA.

Meanwhile, the yearlong hearings before ERCOM are expected to resume on Thursday and March 3. The ADDA alleges Cooley's office engaged in retaliatory transfers of union members and "radically" changed the method of evaluating employee performance in an attempt to undermine the union.

Before the new system, Ipsen said, 85 percent of the prosecutors were rated "outstanding" but now most of them have been downgraded to merely "competent" or worse.

"It's a way to control and punish people for union involvement," Ipsen said. "The first person to be rated `below competent' was me."

ERCOM certified the 300-member ADDA in 2008 as a full-fledged public employees union, following a lengthy battle between Cooley and the prosecutors group. Since then, Ipsen testified he's seen a marked increase in discipline, demotions and terminations.

`Fear in the office'

In his ERCOM complaint, Deputy District Attorney Marc Debbaudt, vice president of the ADDA, alleged Cooley uses "malevolent, vindictive and retaliatory tactics," has a "hit list" of those who criticize him and are ADDA members and has permitted cover-ups of several instances of corruption within his office.

Debbaudt said Cooley has transferred numerous veteran prosecutors into new jobs so they can't "gain a following" and challenge him politically.

"There is a lot of fear in the office," Debbaudt said. "People are afraid to speak up. I would say morale is the lowest it's ever been in my experience."

Since the middle of last year, the ADDA has served Cooley with numerous subpoenas to testify at the hearings, but Cooley has "deliberately" avoided testifying," Encino attorney Richard Shinee, who is representing the ADDA, told ERCOM hearing Officer Thomas Kerrigan on Dec. 2. Shinee said Cooley had promised to appear on five occasions, but failed to do so.

"I think it's outrageous that the chief law enforcement officer of this county is evading a subpoena," Kerrigan said during the hearing.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14442654

Cooley's Reign Of Corruption Continues

Deputy prosecutors sue L.A. County over alleged union retaliation
Lawsuit alleges the county and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley punished deputy district attorneys for unionizing last year, in some cases transferring veteran prosecutors to low-level assignments.

By Robert Faturechi
November 2, 2009

A union representing deputy district attorneys filed a lawsuit last week against Los Angeles County and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley alleging the department's senior managers retaliated against employees for unionizing last year.The complaint accuses Los Angeles County's top law enforcer of using "19th century thuggery commonly employed against union organizers," including punitive work transfers.The Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys, which began representing about 1,000 Los Angeles County prosecutors in March 2008, is currently in the midst of contract negotiations with the district attorney's office and the county.The complaint, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleges that managers transferred senior union officials to juvenile courts -- usually reserved for attorneys starting their careers -- to lengthen their commutes from home. The union alleges managers called the retaliatory practice "freeway therapy."The complaint also accuses the department of helping cook up evidence that a heterosexual union board member took part "in homosexual conduct."Response to the suit from Cooley and county counsel was not available Friday.Marc Debbaudt, a deputy district attorney and union vice president, alleged he was transferred to juvenile courts after 19 years in the department because he is an active member of the union."I'm not being punished because I've not done my job or I'm slacking," he said.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

LAPD and PPL Fund Cooley - Obviously

http://yborcitystogie.blogspot.com/2007/05/lapd-rampage.html

Kelly McSwain said...
2001 - 2007: LAPD's Reign of Terror Unchecked Ending LAPD's Reign of Brutality & Terror : Remove LA Prosecutor Steve Cooley & Fire BrattonLos Angeles, May 4, 2007 -- The brutal rampage by LAPD in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was culmination of a 6-year old secret but intricate policy by the Bush administration and local forces of the extreme right in reversing attempts to reform LAPD after Rodney King Beating and Rampart Corruption Scandal.In early 1999, the US Department of Justice under then-US Attorney General Janet Reno began an aggressive plan to impose reform upon LAPD. By the time the LAPD's Rampart Corruption Scandal became public in 1998, the Clinton Administration had learned that previous attempts to reform one of the largest police departments in the World had largely failed.In June 1999, rumors began to circulate within the ranks of the LAPD and its powerful union (Police Protective League - PPL) that President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno were about to implement drastic anti-corruption measures against LAPD. At the time, the LAPD and PPL complained that these acts represented the federal government's attempt to "violate the LAPD’s 10th amendment rights" and interfere in LAPD's "internal affairs." These rumors, however, were not baseless. During 1999, Ms. Reno's Assistant US Attorneys in Washington, D.C. were busy drafting a historical federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD in which the Clinton administration was charging LAPD with "endemic corruption and systematic violation of constitutional rights of residents of Los Angeles." Additionally, at US DOJ headquarters at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., serious discussions were taking place about using the federal funding of the LAPD as a leverage in imposing anti-corruption reform upon LAPD.Sensing the warnings of the incoming tsunami from Washington in their direction, the LAPD and its PPL began to brace for a defensive position by attempting to secure the local front. Securing their local front meant getting rid of Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles County District Attorney (DA) who in the post-Rampart LA politics had begun criminal investigation and prosecution of a large number of LAPD officers for corruption and other crimes. Garcetti's public statements at the time, such as, "I can't tell you whether we will wind up with three, four or five dirty cops or 25 or more," were making LAPD and PPL extremely frightened. In a desperate attempt to shield corrupt LAPD officers from Garcetti, LAPD and PPL funded and fielded Republican Steven Lawrence Cooley, an LAPD Reserve Officer, as their own candidate to run against Garcetti for the LA DA position. Public court records from the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles and the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco show that at the same time the PPL-sponsored Cooley was campaigning to unseat Garcetti, PPL, through its high-powered lawyers, was filing multiple motions and appeals against Attorney General Janet Reno's attempts to impose a federally mandated reform program upon LAPD. The above multiple attempts by PPL to prevent the Clinton administration from initiating its anti-corruption program proved to be legally frivolous since the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied all of them.In September 1999, the Republican Cooley began his PPL-funded campaign to unseat DA Garcetti. PPL was against Garcetti's criminal prosecution of LAPD officers. In his 1999-2000 campaign against Garcetti, Cooley received more than $1 million from PPL while publicly speaking against LAPD's Rampart Corruption Scandal and criticizing Garcetti for not being forceful and efficient enough in his criminal prosecution of the corrupt officers. Of course, Cooley was engaging in blatant public deception since he knew that he had received the $1 million from PPL to unseat Garcetti and thus shield the corrupt LAPD officers from any further criminal prosecution. History would show that Cooley's 1999-2000 campaign against Garcetti for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office was one of the biggest frauds brought against the voters of Los Angeles since at the same time PPL was waging federal court battles against President Clinton's attempts to fight corruption in LAPD, PPL was paying for Cooley's campaign and commercials which depicted Garcetti as not forceful enough in fighting the LAPD's corruption.On the federal level, significant developments were taking place. Attorney General Reno was putting her final touches on the draft of the federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD. About three weeks before the document was filed in the federal court, on October 11, 2000, then-Governor George W. Bush made the following statement in his televised debate with Al Gore in North Carolina: "One of my concerns, though, is I don't want to federalize the local police forces. I want to -- obviously in the egregious cases we need to enforce civil rights law, but we need to make sure that internal affairs decisions at the local level do their job and be given a chance to do their job. I believe in local control of governments, and obviously if they don't there needs to be a consequence at the federal level." Bush, however, knew well that according to the Christopher Commission's Report, the LAPD's "Internal Affairs" was a source of corruption in itself.On November 2, 2000, Attorney General Janet Reno filed her historical anti-corruption lawsuit against LAPD in federal court in Los Angeles. LAPD was charged with systemic violations of civil rights, including, "having established a pattern of violating the people's constitutional rights and arresting residents of Los Angeles without probable cause." SEE page 2 of the Complaint at: http://www.freemarje.com/US%20Fed%20Lawsuit%20v%20LAPD%2011-03-00.pdfNevertheless, two significant historical events followed which reversed the course of anti-corruption attempts at LAPD for the following six years. In fact, these two historical events resulted in emboldening, empowering, and expanding the forces of corruption within the ranks of the LAPD on a gigantic and unprecedented scale. On November 7, 2000, Reserve LAPD Officer Cooley (Republican), with substantial backing from PPL, defeated Gil Garcetti. On December 12, 2000, George Bush was declared as the new President of the United States. On January 1, 2001, Cooley took office as the new District Attorney of Los Angeles. According to the recorded statement of one of the senior Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles, within two weeks after taking office, Cooley walked into the six-man office of Rampart Task Force which Garcetti had set up within the Special Investigations Division of the DA Office and simply said: "wrap it up!" Shortly thereafter the office was closed and all Rampart Corruption Scandal investigations in DA office ended.The above two historical events had drastic and severely detrimental consequences for the people of Los Angeles. On the federal front, Shortly after taking office on January 20, 2001, the Bush administration brought the federal litigation against LAPD to a screeching halt. The management of the Federal Consent Decree by John Ashcroft and later by Alberto Gonzales became a practice in public deception. All federal efforts to reform LAPD were abandoned and the Bush administration became LAPD's "partner in war on terror." Having realized it was now a major force in Los Angeles politics and having successfully rolled back attempts to "interfere in its internal affairs" by both Reno and Garcetti, LAPD and PPL's tentacles began to rapidly grow into the only remaining component of the Los Angeles County Criminal Justice System, the Criminal Division of Los Angeles County Superior Court system. With full support from the Bush administration, police brutality, misconduct, deception, fraud, perjury, criminal conspiracy, fabrication of evidence, and criminal activities by police officers became institutionalized and achieved new high marks in the history of Los Angeles.On local level, Cooley shielded corrupt LAPD officers from any and all criminal prosecution. No more LAPD officers were prosecuted. Even when an LAPD officer fired multiple shots at a black 13-year-old boy (Devin Brown) backing a car at 2 miles-per-hour, the prosecutor Cooley refused to prosecute the liable LAPD officer for the boy's killing. When the LAPD’s 250-lb. white Edward Larrigan shot a frail 5’1” 102-lb. 55-year-old mentally ill homeless African-American woman (Margaret Mitchell) in the chest from a distance of several feet away and killed her, Cooley, without ever requesting to examine the six boxes of relevant documents in possession of the attorney for the family of Ms. Mitchell under a federal protective order, said the killing was justified and refused to prosecute even though the Police Commission, on a 3-2 vote, had disagreed. When a disabled black teenager (Donovan Jackson) was beaten up by white LAPD officers on national TV, Cooley and LAPD conspired to prevent a Rodney King type of reaction from the public by deceptively putting the officers on a bogus circus-style criminal trial while at the same time undermined the chances of their conviction by removing a seasoned prosecutor and assigning a young lawyer with no experience in such prosecutions. Cooley further allowed the officer's seasoned defense lawyer to put up evidence before the jury that the "beating" was a "training issue" and not a criminal act. By botching the trial, Cooley guaranteed that LAPD officers Jeremy Morse and Bijan Darvish would not be convicted. Cooley proved to be a loyal puppet of LAPD. He also began to aggressively bring criminal charges against victims of police misconduct, knowing that winning criminal convictions against victims of LAPD misconduct prevented them from filing future civil rights lawsuits and forever closed chances of investigation for these cases. In his reelection campaign in March 2004, Cooley received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions, mostly from the LAPD's PPL. Thomas Higgins, his most serious challenger, had collected $25,000 in campaign contributions. With enough PPL money to send colorful brochures to every LA voter and substantial TV commercials, Cooley easily won his reelection to a second-term as the LA’s District Attorney.During the 2001-2007 Bush-Cooley's reign of terror in Los Angeles, hundreds of victims of police brutality and police misconduct cases were charged with baseless and fabricated criminal charges. Cooley and LAPD worked together on fabrication and manufacturing of false evidence against the victims. At the same time, LAPD's PPL, having flexed its political muscles and having realized the extent of its power, began to more actively finance the reelection of those Superior Court judges whom Cooley and PPL viewed as valuable assets in the complex political empire they had built. With federal protection for residents of Los Angeles evaporated under George W. Bush, hundreds of innocent victims were falsely convicted and sent to prison. State convictions guaranteed that LAPD was shielded forever from future civil rights lawsuits. During the above period, no LAPD officers were ever charged with any crime arising from fabrication and manufacturing of false evidence.An example of this institutionalized policy of terror and criminal activities is in the case of a Swedish woman and mother who was held in pretrial detention for more than four years (2002-2006) based on evidence fabricated by Cooley's DA office and LAPD. Despite four years of incarceration, the woman refused to plea guilty to the charges fabricated by LAPD and Cooley. The case had begun as a police misconduct case when LAPD officers had entered the woman's home without a warrant and by mistake had arrested her while she was unconscious from a wrongly prescribed prescription medication. The officers had wrongly assumed the woman was suffering from an illegal drug overdose. Cooley filed criminal charges against the woman in order to cover up the LAPD's initial misconduct. Further information on this case and the inner workings of Cooley-LAPD's empire can be viewed at www.freemarje.com.What happened in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was the culmination of LAPD's reign of terror under Bush-Cooley policy during 2001-2007. During the above period, the residents of Los Angeles were left defenseless against forces of the extreme right which implemented an institutionalized policy built on deception, fraud, perjury, and criminal activities.The events of May 1, 2007 showed that LAPD with the help of its DA Cooley and under the protection of the Bush administration has succeeded in establishing a police state in the most populous county of the United States. As the video footage of the rampage shows, LAPD officers engage in criminal acts against the population with impunity. The message from the video footage of the assault is clear: LAPD and its thugs exerting undue influence over the largest metropolis of the United States with an iron fist. It is clear that with substantial support from George W. Bush and the local forces of the extreme right, the LAPD, PPL, and Cooley have succeeded in transforming the 4,000-square-mile Los Angeles County to an autonomous police state where a brutal junta composed of the LAPD, Cooley, and an army of 600 mostly corrupt judges who owe their reelections to financial contributions from LAPD's PPL rule. For further information on how various intricate components of this police junta operate in tandem, SEE pages 19-26 at http://www.freemarje.com/Federal%20Complaint%20Filed%20Against%20Defendants.pdf
12:09 AM, May 06, 2007

http://www.freemarje.com/Federal%20Complaint%20Filed%20Against%20Defendants.pdf

Let's Continue To Keep It A Secret

http://lapd.axxiomportal.com/custom/10/1082/misc/DA_Cooley_letter_re_Financial_Disclosures.pdf

EDITORIAL RAMPART'S FINALE AT LAST, THE LAPD CAN MOVE FORWARD.

NOW it's official: The Los Angeles Police Department"LAPD" and "L.A.P.D." redirect here. For other uses, see LAPD (disambiguation). This article or section is written like an . ..... Click the link for more information. stands guilty of allowing a rogue unit to run wild in the streets but not a ``pattern and practice'' of civil rights violations as the U.S. Department of Justice alleged. After two years of exhaustive investigation, District Attorney Steve Cooley Stephen Lawrence ("Steve") Cooley (born May 1, 1947 in Los Angeles, California) is a veteran prosecutor who was elected as Los Angeles County's 36th District Attorney on November 7, 2000. He was sworn in for his second term on December 6, 2004. has found that the corruption alleged by dirty-cop-turned-informant Rafael Perez was limited to his Rampart Division anti-gang unit. Lousy management and some other bad cops like Perez let the anti-gang unit run out of control, and the police code of silence concealed what a lot of officers knew was going on. But Cooley found no evidence of systemic discrimination or abuses.

Since the D.A. worked closely with federal officials, it's a safe bet that Washington won't either. The numbers tell the story: After untold millions spent in trials, investigations and court settlements, only nine Rampart officers were ever formally charged. Of those, four were convicted and sentenced. Three other convictions were overturned and are on appeal. One was acquitted, and one case is pending. About a dozen officers were fired or retired. That's all. The findings are both a relief and an outrage. The relief is the knowledge that Rampart did not materialize into what Mayor James Hahn For the Iowa politician, see .James Kenneth "Jim" Hahn (born July 3, 1950) is an American politician from the Democratic Party. He was the Deputy City Attorney (1975-1979), City Controller (1981-1985), City Attorney (1985-2001) and Mayor of Los Angeles, California has called the city's ``worst fear - of police officers admitting they fabricated fab·ri·cate tr.v. fab·ri·cat·ed, fab·ri·cat·ing, fab·ri·cates1. To make; create.2. To construct by combining or assembling diverse, typically standardized parts: evidence and sent people to jail on planted evidence.'' But the outrage is that the city had already allowed its worst fear to consume itself by giving in a falling inwards; a collapse.See also: Giving to the Justice Department's demands for a federal consent decree A settlement of a lawsuit or criminal case in which a person or company agrees to take specific actions without admitting fault or guilt for the situation that led to the lawsuit.A consent decree is a settlement that is contained in a court order. that surrenders local control to a court-appointed monitor who can second-guess every action by every officer. When Justice, citing little more than Perez's exaggerated and deceitful claims, demanded control over the LAPD 1. LAPD - Link Access Procedure on the D channel.2. LAPD - Los Angeles Police Department. , city leaders never fought back. They just rolled over, and Hahn, as city attorney, took the lead role in negotiating the city's plea to crimes it did not commit. Now, for at least five years, every LAPD cop will find his or her every move scrutinized by a federal monitor. City leaders and police commanders alike will have their policies and reforms subject to the whim of judges and bureaucrats. Taxpayers will be stuck with the bill - $25 million to get the consent decree implemented and $45 million a year to maintain it. Then there's the cost to officer morale, which is incalculable in·cal·cu·la·ble adj.1. a. Impossible to calculate: a mass of incalculable figures.b. Too great to be calculated or reckoned: incalculable wealth. , but massive in a force that's hemorrhaging personnel. There are some people who will never join the LAPD because of the consent decree albatross, and others who will leave because of it. But worst of all, there are the many more who will stay, afraid or unwilling to do their jobs as best they can for fear of triggering the ire of a distant yet hypersensitive hy·per·sen·si·tiveadj.Responding excessively to the stimulus of a foreign agent, such as an allergen; abnormally sensitive.
hy federal overseer. And for what? For an awful scandal blown out of proportion by professional cop-haters. For all the damage the unnecessary consent decree will wreak wreak tr.v. wreaked, wreak·ing, wreaks1. To inflict (vengeance or punishment) upon a person.2. To express or gratify (anger, malevolence, or resentment); vent.3. , it still won't even fix the core problem: the war between management and the rank and file. Nor are we convinced that the code of silence has been broken and that morale will suddenly improve because Hahn has made good on his promise to implement a shortened workweek for officers. Still, with their worst fears safely behind them, city leaders can at last get on with what should be their top priority: fixing the department's real problems once and for all.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Daily NewsNo portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

Is Steve Cooley Corrupt Or Illiterate?

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2007/08/03/king-drew.PDF

Who Killed Biggie Smalls? An Interview With Detective Russell Poole

Who Killed Biggie? A Throwback Interview w/ LA dective Russell Poole and Rollingstone Editor Randall Sullivan

http://odeo.com/episodes/550763-Breakdown-FM-Who-Killed-Biggie-A-Throwback-Interview-w-LA-dective-Russell-Poole-and-Rollingstone-Editor-Randall-Sullivan